The bankruptcy process that recently began at Kurchenko's largest plant opens the door to its eventual exit from the orbit of Putin's financiers.
Today, the bankruptcy of PJSC Odesa Oil Refinery was officially registered in the Unified Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs. According to DS, the court ruling was issued on January 11th, initiated by Odesaoblenergo, the largest energy supplier in the Odesa region. The energy company filed a corresponding lawsuit back in November of last year, after which the State Fiscal Service filed similar claims against the debtor. However, the tax authorities failed to achieve their goal—the court did not even consider their application because the plaintiff managed to incorrectly identify the defendant.
As is well known, Odesaoblenergo is part of the VS Energy group, whose control is attributed to Russians – Yevgeny Giner, president of the CSKA Moscow football club, and Alexander Babakov, a United Russia State Duma deputy who voted for the illegal annexation of Crimea. However, despite this, it's unlikely that the Russians have taken control of the Odesa Oil Refinery bankruptcy process. As DS has learned, the court appointed Dmitry Proskurin, an insolvency administrator from the Dnipropetrovsk region, as the receiver of the debtor's property. Proskurin is known as the liquidator of the Dneprodzerzhinsk Non-Ferrous Metals Plant, once the country's largest specialized producer of platinum, palladium, rhodium, and gold from recycled materials. Proskurin was appointed to this position in December 2014 at the instigation of the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine, which oversees the non-ferrous metals plant. Therefore, there is every reason to consider him a person who will at the very least "listen closely" to the opinion of Vladimir Demchyshyn's department regarding the future of the Odessa Oil Refinery.
Since 2013, the majority shareholder of this enterprise, capable of refining 2,8 million tons of oil per year, has been Empson Limited, a company registered in Cyprus. It was initially considered part of the VETEK group, owned by Kharkiv's "golden boy," Sergei Kurchenko. Yuriy Gapochenko, a manager close to Kurchenko, has served as the company's executive director since May of last year. However, according to rumors, the real beneficial owner of the plant since 2014 has been the Russian government-controlled VTB Group, which has held the entire property complex, including a 59-hectare plot of land, as collateral for two years. The property ended up in Russian hands after several of Kurchenko's foreign companies received loans from VTB Bank totaling over $350 million (mortgage agreements with the refinery, which acted as guarantor for the debtors, were signed in late February 2014, immediately after the collapse of the Yanukovych regime).
Even if VTB's application is accepted in full, the property disposal process, as Ukrainian practice shows, could drag on for many years, never even reaching the registry stage. During this time, the plant could easily accumulate even greater debt to Ukrtransnaftoprodukt or entities close to its overseers.
However, already in April, the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv seized this property at the instigation of the Main Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, which was investigating the machinations of the VETEK group. At the same time, 75 tons of petroleum products from the Odessa Oil Refinery were seized, the subsequent sale of which through the state-owned enterprise Ukrtransnaftoprodukt (a subsidiary of the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry) caused a major scandal. And already in December of last year—shortly before the company's bankruptcy—it became known that the aforementioned state-owned enterprise had "taken operational management of the Odessa Oil Refinery." This was done on the basis of an order from the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry, based on a ruling by the Primorsky District Court of Odessa dated November 13, 2015.
In this light, the bankruptcy proceedings against the Odessa Oil Refinery, currently being handled by someone friendly to the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry, could play into the hands of the Ukrainian authorities. After all, the administrator of the refinery's assets is responsible for compiling the register of creditors' claims against the debtor, and this process has its own unique challenges—especially if the insolvency administrator lacks the necessary loyalty to the largest claimant. Even if the creditor's application is ultimately accepted in full, the property management process, as Ukrainian practice shows, could drag on for many years, never reaching the stage of compiling the register. During this time, the refinery could easily accumulate even greater debt to Ukrtransnaftoprodukt or entities close to its overseers. Some media outlets have identified Serhiy Pashinsky, a People's Front MP, and Serhiy Tyshchenko, a businessman close to him and the owner of the Factor fuel group.
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!